An extremist, not a fanatic

November 10, 2012

Interests or preferences?

What is politics for? This is the question raised by Emma when she complains that politicians are "separate and self obsessed, talking to each other in a code designed to stop [voters] understanding or getting involved." Emma's concern is, of course, not confined to the left. The desire to "engage" with voters lies behind Dorries' decision to appear on I'm a Celebrity and Cameron's "mad idea" to appear on This Morning.

But it's not just the voters that politicians are distant from. On fiscal policy, tax policy and - especially - immigration, politicians are as disengaged from experts as they are from voters. Emma is flat wrong to say that "If you don’t have an academic career or a string of publications behind you, it can be a struggle to have your voice heard." The likes of Simon Wren-Lewis or Christian Dustmann have as much influence in Whitehall as a welfare recipient.

The problem here is that, in at least some important ways, there's a massive distance between what voters want and what's good for them. Politicians cannot be both populists and technocrats, therefore, and end up being neither, disengaged from both "ordinary voters" and from expertise and evidence.

This raises a question which should be made explicit: should politics serve the preferences of voters, or their interests?

Max and Hopi seem to think the latter. They say that politicians must tell voters when they are wrong, when their preferences don't serve their interests.In saying this, they echo Burke:

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion...If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect.

Against this, I fear that those who want more "engagement" with voters seem to want politicians to defer more to voters'preferences.This raises the danger of falling into X Factor politics - an ill-informed choice between a limited field of inadequate candidates, the winner of whom quickly fades into disappointing mediocrity.

In a world where voters are (rationally?) ignorant about policies, should politics really be just another form of marketing and consumer choice?

Comments

Well said.Politicians hopefully see and understand the macro landscape better than common citizens. Subsequently, politicians must serve the interests of the country's ability to progress by setting up structures and policies that ensure success.

In turn, politicians must do a much better job acknowledging the politics and interests of the local.

You have not scratched the surface of the immigration debate. But it is clear the British public oppose further immigration, including many immigrants!

Like with your views on immigration the failings of the political class are legion.

Comment on the aspiration for a living wage, which still excludes taxes and housing costs (so is not a living income). The Living wage should be the legal minimum wage in my view, after adjusting for housing and taxes. But this does not imply regional pay as we should work to normalise housing costs not set in concrete the current over inflated asset values.

“Emma is flat wrong to say that "If you don’t have an academic career or a string of publications behind you, it can be a struggle to have your voice heard." The likes of Simon Wren-Lewis or Christian Dustmann have as much influence in Whitehall as a welfare recipient.”

You are flat (and provably) wrong in attempting to show that Emma is flat wrong in her material implication: you deny the antecedent (by indicating that the likes of Simon Wren-Lewis or Christian Dustmann *do* have academic careers or a string of publications behind them) and you affirm the consequent (by indicating that they struggle to be heard). Two logical errors do not make one good argument, and from these errors, nothing logically follows to counter Emma’s claim.

Besides which, it is clearly true that it *can* be a struggle to be heard in certain quarters if you don’t have an academic career or a string of publications behind you. Why be so silly to deny it?

In a parliamentary democracy with infrequent elections the need for politicians to engage with the electorate is slight.

In contrast, the need to engage with each other is significant, both when the politics are consensual (e.g. in coalitions) and confrontational (when you must maintain the discipline of your side). It should hardly come as a surprise then that politicians "speak a different language" and are capable of self-deluding mistakes (e.g. dodgy expenses claims). This bubble is typical of many industries and professions.

By the same token, politicians have little need to interact with "experts". Most government consists of maintaining existing orthodoxies, so occasions where we reach a fork in the road and expert opinion could prove decisive are rare.

There's one fairly straightforward way of squaring the demand for a more participative politics with the competing demand for better decisionmaking. The problem with participative decisionmaking is (at least in part) that it tends to select out social or economic groups. It's only better than representative democracy if it involves lots of people in making better decisions than politicians can.

One way of stepping closer to this is to find a playful way of getting a diverse group of disinterested people to play games with data In order to cast new light from many minds on a problem.

MPs can't defensibly ignore such evidence in their deliberations. It's not easy but it's do-able. Every attempt I've seen at participative decision making seems to attempt to side-step this.